10 days until parade day! I'm getting pumped! Every year, it starts to sink in that the ride is approaching when I can tap into the 10-day weather forecast. Got most of my throws. Still need to get a few little things yet, but I'm ready to go. What's gonna be especially great is that my brother will be riding alongside me, along with two high school buddies. Anyone interested in my float information can send me an email and I'll clue you in.
On my funky grooves bicycling playlist:
My favorite part are the horns in the background.
Yes, it's that time of the week again -- Sunday ... Superbowl Sunday. And I have to file my report on my own "championship" quest (of a sort): My 2012 Resolution!
On Jan. 1, I committed myself to get my weight down to 170 lbs by the end of the year or face a severe (to me, at least) penalty. Boy what a motivation that has been!
I started off the year on Jan. 1 at 206 lbs. Here's my mug shot from that day:
Patriots 38, Giants 17.
This is gonna be a blowout. The Giants have gotten pretty lucky up to this point. The Patriots are solid all around. And the Patriots are gonna remember how the Giants ruined their perfect season and give a little playback.
It's gonna be a game with a lot of emotion coming from the Patriots side of the bench.
Oh, and Gronkowski's da bomb!
And as a special bonus, you get to see the Nicholas brothers give us a wonderful tap dance performance. They just don't do it the same way these days, and they can't even approach doing it better. Enjoy:
They are plentiful and varied. If Romney's smart, he'll do two things: (1) he'll avoid like the plague the social cons and populist demagogues like Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, etc.. (2) He'll pick someone like Marco Rubio who can make a dent in the Latino community's overwhelming support for Obama.
If he's smart, he'll avoid picking a Romney-esque clone -- what the GOP base would call a RINO -- like McCain or Snowe or Collins, etc.
But if the potential GOP VP candidates are smart, they'll avoid hitching themselves to the Romney wagon, because there's no way Romney's negatives won't rub off on them and taint them -- and Romney's negatives are substantial.
In short, its a lose-lose scenario all the way around.
Frankly, I just can't see how the GOP wins this thing come November.
As part of the Camel Toe Lady Steppers Mardi Gras marching and dance troupe. Check out this article to find out more about the group. And you can even see my B-2/3 in the featured photo donning bits of her costume.
I don't see how religious liberty is in any way constrained by the government's determination that institutions which are not "religious" in the sense of proselytizing or conducting religious ceremonies, and who serve a clientele irrespective of faith or belief or religious conviction, not to mention who employ people of differing faiths or beliefs or religious convictions, have to give the option for contraception to its employees in whatever health insurance plans are offered through the employer.
The opposition to contraception is a moral teaching, and allowing individuals to make the choice about it is not constraining religious freedom but advancing it. To restrict one's ability to contract with a healthcare provider for contraception is the real constraint on freedom. Those who have a religious conviction in opposition to contraception have the choice not to avail themselves of this healthcare provision, should they choose not to do so.
Well, it's Sunday again, which means it's that time to provide an update on my 2012 New Year's Resolution to reduce my weight to a healthy 170 lbs. There are still a couple of days to the end of the first month of 2012; but today marks four full weeks into the 52 week year. With 48 weeks to go still, I'm in great shape.
To rehash: I started out the 2012 New Year at 206 lbs. This was my shoulder/head shot on that day:
Bill Maher really exposes what I think is one of the biggest problems with the GOP, and which is reflected in the current GOP primary candidates' rhetoric: they have crafted an image of Obama that is so far removed from reality and so way out in stratosphere that to even perpetuate it indicates a kind of mental delusion. Here's Maher exposing this as it relates to the linking of Obama with Saul Alinsky (a person, by the way, whom no one really seems to know, but whose name sounds enough like Stalin and Lenin and Russian Communists in general to whip up an unthinking, but delusionally "patriotic" Obama-hating mob:
The real irony here, for those who really are in the know, is that Saul Alinsky and his "Rules for Radicals" is quite influential in the grass roots activism of the Tea Party movement. The "rules" that Alinsky teaches actually have been deployed quite effectively (and sometimes quite intentionally) by grass -roots conservative activists. What conservatives tend to object to is not the fundamental recipe Alinsky developed for effecting social change, but that he taught them to poor people, racial minorities, and other marginalized groups cut out of power and on the edges of effective participation in our political system. In a political system that claims to be of the people, by the people, and for the people irrespective of social class, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, religious conviction, or racial/ethnic identity, one would think that any freedom-loving, grass roots advocacy conservative would celebrate anything that mobilizes Americans to find their voice, to speak up, and to challenge authority when it contravenes what they believe is in their best interests, as something essential to, worthy of, and, yes, exceptional in the American idea of democracy and individual sovereignty.
What I find to be revealing about the attempts to link Obama hatred with Alinsky is that what conservatives seem to project is a very elitist and exclusive understanding of American civic life in which only the "right" people should be organizing and participating in grass roots activism. And if it's not the "right" people, by whom they mean "real" Americans such as Tea Partiers, wealthy businesses, and the like, exercising their voice and collective power through organizing, then it's both un-democratic and un-American.
Shame on conservatives who play this game and attempt to create such a narrative about Obama as if it were a bad thing when that is precisely the game that the current conservative anti-Establishment insurgency is engaged in itself.
I don't know much about many jazz drummers, but of the little that I do know, I'm having an internal struggle with three of the greats on this instrument. First, there's Chick Webb whose career at the Savoy was explosive, albeit short. And I love his driving rhythms. Then there's Gene Krupa whose legacy was steady and consistently impressive. I particularly love Krupa's drumming with the Benny Goodman Orchestra. And, finally, there's Max Roach. He's perhaps the most innovative and well-rounded drummer I've ever listened to; and I think his talent really far exceeds that of either Chick Webb or Gene Krupa, but it's hard to compare them all together given that they represent very different performance styles.
So my question to you jazz aficionados who know a bit more about drummers: how would you rank the three and why? And if you want to throw any other drummers into the mix as someone I need to consider (such as Art Blakey or Paul Motian, etc.) in the top tier, let me know why.
In my efforts to try to temper my exercise and weight loss asceticism, I went a bit off schedule today. I ate a healthy breakfast, then went for a swim after dropping the Squirrelly Girlies off at their dancing lessons. The swim was a modest one, and I didn't push it tacking on my usual stationary bicycling regimen. Even still, I did put in a good 30 minutes of swimming.
Then, I met up with my brother who is riding with me in the Thoth parade and we went shopping for some specialty throws. That's always an exciting thing to do. After that, we went and had lunch together at "Dat Dog" -- and this is where I relaxed a bit on the intensity of my New Year's Resolution. I ordered a hot sausage dog with the usual fixings.
And later, I ate a regular healthy dinner with my family.
It was a higher calorie intake day (and a lower calorie burning exercise day) than I have been subjecting myself to lately, but it felt good to be in control knowing that I can do these things and still feel comfortable with being able to meet my goal.
I wanted to slow things down, and I'm trying to do just that. But the key for me is not to let this day become the beginning of a longer and more sustained letdown from the healthier routine that I have been living lately. And I have to say that I do have this tendency to obsess and go gangbusters for a sustained while, only to have an equally intense wave of lethargy and inactivity.
Here's where the New Year's Resolution "nudge" will hopefully help. As long as I have that guiding me, I think I may be able to regulate and sustain a healthier exercise and eating regimen, even when that intense first phase gets tempered.
I will still be posting pictures every Sunday (so expect one tomorrow!) along with a weigh-in update. And that, too, I think will help keep me honest without being overly excessive in carrying out the plan. After all, I did set a modest goal of 3 lbs weight loss per month for a reason. Let's see if I can be content with that.
Already, I have to say that I am very pleased with where I am today and wouldn't be upset at all if, after this Resolution year is over, I can maintain my weight and practice better living at around where I am now. Still, I have the resolution to meet, and I will do it. I think I'm entering a new and critical phase of the plan, so let's hope luck is with me!
Again, as part of my walking to work commitment, I get to listen some NPR Jazz Profiles episodes. That's one of the side benefits whenever I find myself walking long stretches. Anyway, I was listening to the 3-part profile of Count Basie, which was just wonderful. Every time I listen to a Jazz Profiles episode, it makes me want to read all the great biographies and autobiographies of these great jazz legends. One day, I'll get to them.
But one of the reasons why I chose Count Basie's profile to listen to is because I have been enjoying listening to him and his orchestra in my "Big Band Bicycling" playlist.
One of the tunes I have on this playlist is also the one tune that came to define Count Basie's orchestra: One O'Clock Jump. So, as a tribute to Count Basie and the enjoyment I've been getting from him lately, here's a rendition of the tune:
Today, after a particularly vigorous workout, I weighed in at 185.0 lbs. That's an almost 5 lb. drop from Sunday. I've been averaging a 1.5 lb drop per day. That can't be good and it has me a bit worried. I've tried to be more vigilant about my caloric intake and its distribution across various sources of calories (fats, proteins, and carbohydrates); but I think it's clear that I'm way under-nourishing myself. I shouldn't be losing this much weight this quickly, and I worry that not only am I burning fat cells, but I'm also cutting into muscle cells.
So, I'm going to try to slow things down and try to increase the amount of calories I'm ingesting. I've read that one should never slip below 1200 calories per day, and I don't think I've been that ascetic; but I do think that I'm staying under 2000 calories, but burning a lot in a rigorous exercise program (probably upwards of 3500 calories per day counting the number of calories one normally burns in a sedentary state, plus the added calories burned through exercise).
I want to lose weight, but I want to do it in a healthy manner, and I have to carefully look at my diet and exercise regimen to find that appropriate balance between cutting weight and keeping up a healthy, balanced, and sustainable supply of energy through food.
Any tips or advice are welcome.
Some conservatives are critical of Obama's analogizing the Bin Laden raid and military cohesiveness and unity in the execution of it as almost approaching a dangerous "fascist" or "technocratic statist" idea of America. (See Conor Friedersdorf, Prof. Mondo, and even my esteemed Andrew Sullivan [see Sullivan's 10:17 pm comment]).
First off, I find this richly ironic as conservatives are the first to criticize President Obama for being anti-everything patriotic in the military, a "divider" and not a uniter. They are also the first to complain bitterly about those of us who disagree with them as not part of "real" America. Yeah, yeah ... try to wish this away, but the fact is that America's ideological division and messiness is never celebrated by conservatives as a fundamental part of who we are, but is rather alien and foreign to America -- it is the other "faux" America and is not really who or what we are. And any claims to a feeling of an American-ness that we share in opposition to forces arrayed against the project that is America, in all of its messiness and division, are always questionable when a liberal Democrat makes such claims.
I wrote the following in a comment at Prof. Mondo's blog that captures my problem with this line of critiquing this part of Obama's speech:
I think Obama understands America and Americans pretty darn well if you want to refer to the average person. You (and Friedersdorf) can read a (nearly) fascist meaning into what Obama was saying, but I think folks who don’t hold Ph.D.s or who haven’t studied closely the fine variations of governing ideologies such as totalitarianism, fascism, democracy, republicanism, corporatism, etc., will know exactly what Obama meant. He was saying (as he hinted at when he directly prefaced this part of his SOTU address when he noted that the soldiers on the Osama bin Laden mission were probably both Democrats and Republicans) that in spite of our differences, we all share what it means to be an American and that this matters (or should matter) when push comes to shove and the very idea of America is in question. In fact, I’ve even heard some conservatives make the point that when a foreigner seeks to demean our country’s President it doesn’t matter that we do it ourselves. We get to do it because we’re Americans, and it’s our birthright; but if some foreigner wants to do it, well then we’re going to stand with our President and defend what he represents as an American because it’s also a slight on us if we don’t. For instance, I may not have liked George Bush, and I may rail on him all the time, but I’ll be damned if I won’t come to Bush’s defense as an American when some foreign yahoo tries to belittle and demean him. That’s what Obama was conveying, and I think most Americans knew exactly that and agree with it. It has to do not with the messiness of difference, but with the commonality of our American identity.
Yes, that “spilled milk” joke was pretty atrocious; but there is a difference between Obama’s bad joke and the usual bad jokes told by other candidates. And it is the fact that Obama knew it was a bad joke and told it anyway. You could see from his body language and facial expression when he started the joke to when he followed it through to the punch line that he knew the absurdity and corniness of it. But there’s something appealing and even comforting about a person who is confident enough and self-assured enough to acknowledge in the moment a bit of corniness in an attempt at humor. That bad joke, in my mind, did not reflect a “tone-deaf” and “out of touch” Obama, but instead had the effect of humanizing him. It made Obama seem so much like all the rest of us who have either told jokes ourselves that fell flat or who have cringed in hearing a bad joke being told. Watch that clip of the SOTU again and see if you don’t find yourself laughing along with Obama not at the joke, but at Obama himself for even attempting it knowing it was a clunker. The GOP narrative of Obama being an arrogant elitist just doesn’t wash when you see moments like this, even for those who disagree with Obama and find his policies problematic.
One of the things I'm trying to do over the course of the year is to turn to some of the classic literature that I should have already read long ago, but never got around to doing. The choice of the moment is Herman Melville's Moby Dick. I've read a very abridged version of this story as a child, but I've never read the real, massive thing. It's such an American classic that it would be a shame to go through life not having read it. In fact, it's pretty pathetic that I haven't read it yet. So, I'm doing it -- reading the thing slowly -- two to three chapters per week -- and squeezing it in between the other novels that I have going right now. And so far, I've really enjoyed what I read. One of the most pleasant surprises for me is Melville's erudition and knowledge of classical mythology. I was expecting detailed knowledge of seafaring and whaling terminology, but not so much of an extensive vocabulary and historical knowledge outside of this realm. As I said, very enjoyable a read so far.
Now that I'm back riding the stationary bike fairly regularly again, I'm back to my Big Band Bicycling. One of the tracks that I thoroughly enjoy is "The Sheik of Araby" performed by Coleman Hawkins' All-Star Octet. This tune was recorded in January of 1940 (and you can hear it on a soundtrack collection from the Ken Burns documentary "The War").
Building on his October 1939 recording of "Body and Soul," you can hear clearly in "The Sheik of Araby" during Hawkins' tenor saxophone solo towards the end of the recording a definite Bebop rhythm, pacing, and sound that would become immortalized by the likes of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Max Roach, and others.
It's fascinating to listen to an early Charlie Parker piece and then to "The Sheik of Araby" by Coleman Hawkins. I love Charlie Parker and his pioneering work with the Bebop style, but I have to give Hawkins the true props for being Bebop's real first practitioner and innovator.
This week has been one of ups and downs; but given the circumstances I was fairly disciplined.
I had to attend three dinners outside of the home as part of some special events this week. They could not be avoided and all of them were rich food options, even though I tried to prepare for them by reducing my caloric intake the rest of the day.
My saving grace, though, was a dedicated high-calorie-burning workout schedule that I stuck to like a pit bull, even when I was tired and distracted by other things.
All said, I was still pleased with the outcome.
Last Sunday, I weighed in at 192.6 lbs. This week, I broke the 190 lb barrier -- but just barely. I weighed in today at 189.4 lbs. This amounts to a 3.2 lb drop for this week. And it was hard work. Still, 3 lbs in one week is pretty admirable given that I need to average 3 lbs in one month to keep pace with my goal. I'm building up a pretty good reserve just in case I need them.
Anyway, visual evidence... Here's this week's head shot:
Today, as I was on the stationary bike trying to get in shape, lose some pounds, and meet my New Year's resolution, I was listening (again) to an NPR Jazz Profiles episode. This particular episode focused on Nat King Cole as a singer. As usual, the profile was simply outstanding, as every single one of them is.
But what got me thinking as I listened to the profile (and it could have been any number of profiles about pre-Civil Rights black jazz musicians) is how disingenuous and thoughtless is the current conservative pretension to embrace a kind of "colorblindness" when it comes to race -- even in matters of cultural expression and identity. I have argued on any number of occasions about the existence and value of expressions of ethnic and racial identity through social and cultural outlets and traditions. I contend that there is such a thing as culture linked to race and that not only is this not a bad thing, but should actually be embraced and celebrated as part of the rich diversity of our country's racial and ethnic heritage.
But I can't tell you how many times I've been called a "racist" by conservatives who pretend to embrace a "colorblind" attitude when they read my thoughts on the subject and think that my position amounts to perpetuating a society where things are determined exclusively by skin color. I think these people conflate and confuse racism with simple racial identity. There is a difference between political oppression and discrimination on the basis of race and an acknowledgment that black culture exists and that black people identify with this culture because of their race.
And as I was listening to Nancy Wilson narrate the profile of Nat King Cole, it dawned on me that the history of racial segregation and discrimination must be considered as a force that actually conditioned the creation of black culture. A shared culture linked exclusively to race was, I think, partly born of black people (and other marginalized peoples) forced to live in a segregated world that was defined by race and ethnicity. Let's just take music as an example (and jazz music in particular). White jazz performers who catered to white audiences were identified by a particular kind of jazz music. Just listen to Stan Kenton and his orchestra, or Benny Goodman and his orchestra, or Paul Whiteman and his orchestra, etc., to get a feel for the way white jazz bands performed. On the other hand, black jazz performers who catered to black audiences were identified by a very different style of music. Chick Webb and his orchestra, Louis Jordan and his "tympany five," Cab Callaway and his orchestra, Count Basie and his orchestra, Duke Ellington and his orchestra, etc. Even the musicians and commentators in the Jazz Profile series often speak of this difference. And we can apply this differentiation to other aspects of culture as well -- food, religious traditions, dance, linguistics, etc.
The difference in culture was born out of a forced difference in association. Might I be so bold as to suggest that if there weren't racial segregation and discrimination in this country, there might be a more universal "American" culture shared by all without disaggregations because of race. But we have what we have today because of our history of racial segregation and discrimination.
Yes, there is a black culture shared by the young black woman in Oregon and the elderly black man in Georgia. This shared culture is defined by race. Being "black" has meaning. And to try to "erase" that shared culture by adopting this contemporary conservative meme of "colorblindness" is not only naive (in that it ignores history) but it is also, I would argue, racist in and of itself. It's basically a claim, under the insidious guise of colorblind equality, that being culturally black in America, even given the realities of our history, is an unacceptable expression of racism. The conservative folks whose ancestors demanded a separate world for black people because of race now seek to claim that the cultural legacies of this world that was forced on black people by segregation, legacies that remind and celebrate the black experience in America, should cease to exist. And how arrogant, patronizing, condescending, and outlandish is that?!?!
Posts
All Comments
|
|
